a lifestlye blog by Madelaine

Main Menu

lazy sunday

My Sunday escapades are usually motivationally manageable; I make a plan, rally the troops accordingly, and we make it happen. However, this Sunday….not so much. It was a lazy rainy Sunday. On my list of things to do were Christmas shopping + gingerbread housing and I woke up excited to do both. What better way to kick off December!

Mike was out of bed earlier than usual for a Football Sunday. He had to go in to work for a few hours so the NFL Game Day Morning song and dance was non existent. The deep + punctuated Michael Irvin serenade was not there to wake up to; instead, I woke to the sound of raindrops and [my] Mike saying bye as he shut the door on his way out.

After a quick latte Shereen [newly Toronto’d via Winnipeg], Julie, and I walked with umbrellas in full flight due west. Along Queen West we made stops at the Paper Place, to fawn over pretty pretty papers and pick out Christmas cards, and at a couple other shops to complete the remainder of my Christmas list. My holiday shopping as of Dec 1st is complete!

Mike made it home from work in time for the Denver- Kansas game; in the door – into sweats – straight to the couch. He was done for the day and I was confident that he would only be getting up to pour a drink or to grab a beer from the fridge. As he got settled Julie made her way over for her first EVER gingerbread house making session.

Our gingerbread house kit of choice hailed from IKEA [I stumbled across the set on my last trip there]. In true IKEA style the cookie pieces were flat packed and came with a set of pictogram instructions.

My decorating style rarely slants toward traditional. One year I attempted a house inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. It ended up looking more like a military shelter, so naturally, I continued to decorate it green and lined it’s perimeter with gummy army men. This year, I decided to draw inspiration from the Spring 2014 RTW runway. Alberta Ferretti’s festive colours on white flounces caught my eye the most and I deemed it my gingerbread house inspiration of 2013.

As Julie worked away on her house to completion…I got as far as icing my roof panels. Too lazy to continue I decided that 1.25 houses completed was a huge success. Julie experienced her first gingerbread house, added a new tradition to her Canadian Christmas, and developed an addiction to royal icing. SUCCESS! Meanwhile, my gingerbread pieces continued to lay naked on a baking sheet on the dining room table for the remainder of the week. I eventually drew up the motivation to complete it on Thursday. It’s not my best work but it’s done.

I tried to bringing the ribbons through on the roof, the sunset coloured flowers throughout the wreaths and attempted to give my snowman a chic flounced shawl [oh and a beret].

I’m not going to go into detail about our Football Sunday dinner, as it was an epic fail. Though Mike was too exhausted and unmotivated to cook a meal, he did add a 3rd reason to get up form the couch. He got up to pay the deliveryman who dropped off 2 boxes of pizza, a box of hot wings, and a box of cinnamon bread. We decided to order hand tossed from Pizza Hut; major disappointment. The dough was weird. Serves us right for ordering in.